The Man-Eating Tree - Philip Stewart Robinson

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Man Eating Tree by phil Robinson. Preliminary note before
committing this paper to the ridicule of the great mediocre,
For many I fear will be inclined to regard this
story as incredible, I would venture on the expression of
an opinion regarding credulity which I do not remember to
have met before. It is this, placing supreme wisdom and

(00:23):
supreme unwisdom at the two extremes, and myself in the
exact mean between them, I am surprised to find that
whether I travel towards the one extreme or the other,
the credulity of those I meet increases. To put it
as a paradox, whether a man be foolish or wiser
than I am, he is more credulous. I make this
remark to point out to those of the great mediocre

(00:46):
whose notice it may have escaped, that credulity is not
of itself shameful or contemptible, and that it depends upon
the manner rather than the matter of their belief, whether
they gravitate towards the sage or the reverse way. According therefore,
to the incredibility found in the following, the reader may
measure as pleases him his wisdom or his unwisdom z

(01:08):
Oriel end of preliminary note. Peregrine Oriel, my maternal uncle
was a great traveler, as his prophetical sponsors at the
font seemed to have guessed he would be. Indeed, he
had rummaged in the garrets and cellars of the earth
was something more than ordinary diligence. But in the narrative
of his travels he did not, unfortunately preserve the judicious

(01:32):
caution of Xenophon between the things seen and the thing heard.
And thus it came about that the town counselors of Brunsbutel,
to whom he had shown a duck billed platypus caught
alive by him in Australia, and who had him posted
for an importer of artificial vermin, were not alone in
their skepticism of some of the old Man's tales. Thus,

(01:56):
for instance, who could hear and believe the tale of
the man sucking tree, from which he had barely escaped
with his life. He called it himself more terrible than
the upas this awful plant that rears its splendid death
shade in the central solitude of a Nubian fern forest.
Sickens by its unwholesome humors all vegetation from its immediate vicinity,

(02:22):
and feeds upon the wild beasts that, in the terror
of the chase or the heat of noon, seek the
thick shelter of its boughs, Upon the birds that flitting
across the open space come within the charmed circle of
its power, or innocently refresh themselves from the cups of
its great waxen flowers, Upon even man himself, when an

(02:45):
infrequent prey, the savage seeks its asylum in the storm,
or turns from the harsh foot wounding sword grass of
the glade to pluck the wondrous fruit that hang plum
down among the wondrous foliage, and such fruit glorious golden ovals,
great honey drops, swelling by their own weight into pear

(03:09):
shaped translucencies. The foliage glistens with a strange dew that
all day long drips on to the ground below, nurturing
a rank growth of grasses, which shoot up in places
so high that their spikes of fierce, blood fed green
show far up among the deep tinted foliage of the

(03:32):
terrible tree, and like a jealous bodyguard keep concealed the
fearful secret of the charnel house within, and draw round
the black roots of the murderous plant a decent screen
of living green. Such was his description of the plant.
And the other day, looking up in a botanical dictionary,

(03:54):
I find that there is really known to naturalists a
family of carnivorous plants. But I see that they are
most of them very small, and prey upon little insects.
Only my maternal uncle, however, knew nothing of this, for
he died before the days of the discovery of the
sun dew and pitcher plants, And, grounding his knowledge of

(04:16):
the man sucking tree simply on his own terrible experience
of it, explained its existence by theories of his own,
denying the fixity of all the laws of nature, except
one that the stronger shall endeavor to consume the weaker,
and holding even this fixity to be itself only a

(04:36):
means to a greater general changefulness, he argued that, since
any partial distribution of the faculty of self defense would
presume an unworthy partiality in the Creator, and since the
central instincts of beast and vegetable and manifest the analogous,
the world must be as precipient as sentient. Throughout carrying

(04:59):
on his theory, for it was something more than hypothesis.
With him a stage or two further, he arrived at
the belief that, given the necessity of any imminent danger
or urgent self interest, every animal or vegetable could eventually
revolutionize its nature. The wolf feeding on grass or nesting

(05:20):
in trees, and the violet arming herself with thorns or
entrapping insects. How he would ask, can we claim for
man the consequence of perceptions to sensations, and yet deny
to beasts that here see, feel, smell, and taste a
precipient principle coexistent with their senses. And if in the

(05:42):
whole range of the animate world there is this gift
of self defense against extirpation and offense against weakness, why
is the inanimate world holding as fiercely struggle for existence
as the other, to be left defenseless and unarmed? And
I did nigh that it is. The Brazilian epiphyte strangles

(06:04):
the tree and sucks out its juices. The tree again,
to starve off its vampire parasite, withdraws its juices into
its roots and piercing the ground in some new place,
turns the current of its sap into other growths. The
epiphyte then drops off the dead boughs on to the

(06:24):
fresh green sprouts springing from the ground beneath it, And
so the fight goes on again. Look at the Indian
peepool tree in what does the fierce yearning of its
roots towards the distant well differ from the sad struggling
of the camel to the oasis, or of Sennachiab's army
to the saving nile? Is the sensitive plant unconscious? I

(06:49):
have walked for miles through plains of it, and watched
till the watching almost made me afraid lest the plants
should pluck up courage and turn upon me, the green
carpet paling into silver gray before my feet and fainting
away all round me as I walked. So strangely did
I feel the influence of this universal aversion that I

(07:13):
would have argued with the plant. But what was the
use If only I stretched out my hands, the mere
shadow of the limb terrified the vegetable to sickness. Shrubs
crumbled up at every commencement of my speech, and at
my period's great sturdy looking bushes, to whose robustness I
had foolishly appealed, sank in pallid supplication. Not a leaf

(07:37):
would keep me company. A breath went forth from me
that sickened life. My mere presence paralyzed life. And I
was glad at last to come out among a less
timid vegetation, and to feel the resentful spear grass retaliating
on the heedlessness that would have crushed it. The vegetable world, however,

(07:58):
has its revenge. You may keep the guinea pig in
a hutch, but how will you pet the basilisk. The
little sensitive plant in your garden amuses your children, who
will find pleasure also in seeking cock chaffers spin round
on a pin. But how could you transplant a vegetable
that seizes the running deer, strikes down the passing bird, and,

(08:23):
once taking hold of him, sucks the carcass of man
himself till his matter becomes as vague as his mind,
and all his animate capabilities cannot snatch him from the
terrible embrace of God. Help him an inanimate tree. Many
years ago, said my uncle, I turned my restless steps

(08:44):
towards Central Africa, and made the journey from whether Senegal
empties itself into the Atlantic to the Nile, skirting the
Great Desert and reaching Nubia. On my way to the
eastern coast, I had with me then three native attendants,
two of them brothers, the third Otona, a young savage
from the Gaboon uplands, a mere lad in his teens.

(09:08):
And one day, leaving my mule with the two men
who were pitching my tent for the night, I went
on with my gun, the boy accompanying me, towards a
fern force, which I saw in the near distance. As
I approached it, I found the force was cut into
two by a wide glade, and, seeing a small herd
of the common antelope, an excellent beast in the pot,

(09:31):
browsing their way along the shaded side, I crept after them,
though ignorant of their real danger. The herd was suspicious
and slowly trotting along before me. Enticed me for a
mile or more along the verge of the fern growths.
Turning a corner, I suddenly became aware of a solitary

(09:51):
tree growing in the middle of the glade, one tree alone.
It struck me at once that I had never seen
a tree exactly like it before, But being intent upon
venison for my supper, I looked at it only long
enough to satisfy my first surprise at seeing a single
plant of such rich growth flourishing luxuriantly in a spot

(10:13):
where only the harsh fern canes seemed to thrive. The deer, meanwhile,
were midway between me and the tree, and looking at them,
I saw they were going to cross the glade. Exactly
opposite them was an opening in the forest in which
I should certainly have lost my supper. So I fired
into the middle of the family. As they were filing

(10:35):
before me. I hit a young fawn, and the rest
of the herd, wheeling round in their sudden terror, made
off in the direction of the tree, leaving the fawn
struggling on the ground Otona. The boy ran forward at
my order to secure it, but the little creature, seeing
him coming, attempted to follow its comrades, and at a

(10:55):
fair pace held on their course. The herd had meanwhile
reached the tree, but suddenly, instead of passing under it,
swerved in their career and swept round it at some
yards distance. Was I mad? Or did the plant really
try to catch the deer. On a sudden I saw,
or thought I saw the tree violently agitated, And while

(11:16):
the ferns all round were standing motionless in the dead
evening air, its boughs were swayed by some sudden gust
towards the herd, and swept in the force of their impulse,
almost to the ground. I drew my hand across my eyes,
closed them for a moment, and looked again. The tree
was as motionless as myself towards it, and now close

(11:38):
to it, the boy was running in excited pursuit of
the fawn. He stretched out his hands to catch it.
It bounded from his eager grasp. Again he reached forward,
and again it escaped him. There was another rush forward,
and the next instant, boy and deer were beneath the tree.
And now there was no mistaking what I saw. The

(12:00):
convulsed with motion, leaned forward, swept its thick foliaged boughs
to the ground, and enveloped from my sight the pursuer
and the pursued. I was within a hundred yards, and
the cry of otuna from the midst of the tree
came to me. In all the clearness of its agony.
There was then one stifled, strangling scream, and except for

(12:23):
the agitation of the leaves where they had closed upon
the boy, there was not a sign of life. I
called out auturner, no answer came. I tried to call
out again, but my utterance was like that of some
wild beast smitten at once with sudden tear and its
death wound. I stood there, changed from all semblance of

(12:44):
a human being. Not all the tears of earth together
could have made me take my eye from the awful plant,
or my foot off the ground. I must have stood
thus for at least an hour, for the shadows had
crept out from the half across the glade before that
hideous paroxysm of fear left me. My first impulse then

(13:07):
was to creep stealthily away, lest the tree should perceive me.
But my returning reason bade me approach it. The boy
might have fallen into the lair of some beast of prey,
or perhaps the terrible life in the tree was that
of some great serpent among its branches. Preparing to defend myself,

(13:27):
I approached the silent tree, the harsh grass crisping beneath
my feet with a strange loudness. The cicadas in the forest,
shrilling till the air seemed throbbing round me with waves
of sound. The terrible truth was soon before me, in
all its awful novelty. The vegetable first discovered my presence

(13:48):
at about fifty yards distance. I then became aware of
the stealthy motion among the thick lipped leaves, reminding me
of some wild beast slowly gathering itself up from long sleep.
A vast coil of snakes in restless motion. Have you
ever seen bees hanging from a bough, a great cluster

(14:09):
of bodies, bee clinging to bee, and by striking the
bough or agitating the air, caused that massed life to
begin sulkily to disintegrate, each insect asserting its individual right
to move. And do you remember how, without one bee
leaving the pencile cluster, the whole became gradually instinct with

(14:30):
sullen life and horrid, with a multitudinous motion. I came
within twenty yards of it. The tree was quivering through
every branch, muttering for blood, and helpless, with rooted feet,
yearning with every branch towards me. It was that terror
of the deep sea which the men of the northern

(14:50):
fiords dread, and which anchored upon some sunken rock, stretches
into vein space. Its longing arms pellucid as the sea itself,
and as relentless, maimed Polypheme groping for his victims. Each
separate leaf was agitated and hungry. Like hands, they fumbled together,

(15:12):
their fleshy palms, curling upon themselves and again unfolding, closing
on each other, and falling apart again, thick, helpless, fingerless
hands rather lips or tongues than hands, dimpled closely with
little cup like hollows. I approached nearer and nearer, step
by step, till I saw that these soft horrors were

(15:33):
all of them in motion, opening and closing incessantly. I
was now ten yards of the farthest reaching bough. Every
part of it was hysterical with excitement. The agitation of
its members was awful, sickening, yet fascinating, in an ecstasy
of eagerness for the food so near them. The leaves
turned upon each other, two meeting, would suck together face

(15:55):
to face with a force that compressed their joint thickness
to a half, thinning the two leaves into one. Now
grappling in a volume like a double shell, writhing like
some green worm, and at last, faint with the violence
of the paroxysm, would slowly separate, falling apart. As leeches
gorged drop off the limbs. A sticky dew glistened in

(16:19):
the dimples, welled over and trickled down the leaf. The
sound of it dripping from leaf to leaf made it
seem as if the tree was muttering to itself. The
beautiful golden fruit as they swung here and there, were
clutched now by one leaf and now by another, held
for a moment close enfolded from the sight, and then
as suddenly released here a large leaf, vampire like, had

(16:44):
sucked out the juices of a smaller one. It hung
limp and bloodless, like a carcass of which the weasel
has tired. I watched the terrible struggle till my starting eyes,
strained by intense attention, refused their offers. And I can
hardly say what I saw, But the tree before me
seemed to have become a live beast. Above me, I

(17:07):
felt conscious, was a great limb, and each of its
thousand clammy hands reached downwards towards me, fumbling, It strained, shivered, rocked,
and heaved. It flung itself about in despair. The boughs,
tantalized to madness with the presence of flesh, were tossed
to this side and to that in the agony of

(17:27):
a frantic desire. The leaves were wrung together as the
hands of one driven to madness by sudden misery. I
felt the vile dew spurting from the tense veins fall
upon me. My clothes began to give out a strange odor.
The ground I stood on glistened with animal juices. Was
I bewildered by terror? Had my senses abandoned me in

(17:51):
my need? I know not, But the trees seemed to
me to be alive, leaning over towards me. It seemed
to be pulling up its room roots from the softened ground,
and to be moving towards me. A mountainous monster with
myriad lips mumbling together for my life was upon me,
Like one who desperately defends himself from imminent death. I

(18:15):
made an effort for life and fired my gun at
the approaching horror. To my dizzied senses, the sound seemed
far off, but the shock of the recoil partially recalled
me to myself, and starting back, I reloaded. The shots
had torn their way into the soft body of the
great thing. The trunk as it received the wound, shuddered,

(18:37):
and the whole tree was struck with a sudden quiver.
A fruit fell down, slipping from the leaves, now rigid
with swollen veins as from carven foliage. Then I saw
a large arm slowly droop, and without a sound, it
was severed from the juice fattened bowl and sank down softly,
noiselessly through the glistening leaves. I fired again, and another

(19:01):
vile fragment was powerless dead. At each discharge, the terrible
vegetable yielded a life piecemeal. I attacked it, killing here
a leaf and there a branch. My fury increased with
a slaughter, till when my ammunition was exhausted, the splendid
giant was left a wreck, as if some hurricane had

(19:21):
torn through it. On the ground lay heaped together, the fragments, struggling,
rising and falling, gasping over them, drooped in dying languor.
A few stricken boughs, while upright in the midst stood
dripping at every joint the glistening trunk. My continued firing
had brought up one of my men on my mule.

(19:43):
He dared not, so he told me come near me,
thinking me mad. I had now drawn my hunting knife,
and with this was fighting with the leaves. Yes, but
each leaf was instinct with a hard life, and more
than once I felt my hand entangled for a moment
and seized as if by sharp lips. Ignorant of the

(20:03):
presence of my companion, I made a rush forward over
the fallen foliage, and with a last paroxysm of frenzy,
drove my knife up to the handle into the soft bowl, and,
slipping on the fast congealing sap, fell exhausted and unconscious
among the still panting leaves. My companions carried me back

(20:26):
to the camp, and, after vainly searching for otuna, awaited
my return to consciousness. Two or three hours elapsed before
I could speak, and several days before I could approach
the terrible thing. My men would not go near it.
It was quite dead, for as we came up, a
great build bird with gaudy plumage that had been securely

(20:50):
feasting on the decaying fruit flew up from the wreck.
We removed the rotting foliage, and there among the dead leaves,
still limp, with juices and pots filed round the roots,
we found the ghastly relics of many former meals and
its last nourishment, the corpse of little Otuna. To have

(21:10):
removed the leaves would have taken too long, so we
buried the body as it was, with a hundred vampire
leaves still clinging to it. Such as nearly as I
remember it was my uncle's story of the man eating Tree.
End of the Man Eating Tree by phil Robinson